Monday, 8 August 2016

A Call to Europe: Human Rights for Refugees August 27th

Sixty years ago, the Refugee Convention defined rights for refugees,
and most countries signed up to it. The first principle was that
refugees should be treated decently. A little later, the world refugee
year of 1959-60 was an attempt to get counties to face up to their
responsibilities.

Since then, the situation of refugees has
got steadily worse. Today their rights are everywhere disregarded,
eroded, and trampled on; governments think they can gain popularity by
treating refugees in an inhuman way. We say that this is unacceptable.
No one is illegal; no one is inhuman.

WE ARE SEEING A GENERAL DEHUMANISATION OF REFUGEES - AND WE DEMAND THAT
THIS MUST STOP, AND THAT WE BEGIN TREATING THEM AS HUMANS, WITH THE
SAME RIGHTS AS OUR OWN.

The countries of Europe in particular
have been trying to evade acknowledging the basic humanity of refugees,
and the rights which they should respect. They have deliberately
avoided:

1. Their responsibility for the wars in Syria, Iraq, and vast areas of the Middle East which have caused people to flee;

2. Their continuing responsibility for ensuring a safe passage to
Europe (in particular across the Mediterranean) for thousands of
refugees, as though they had no duty to protect them. Thousands have
drowned through a deliberate state policy of neglect.

Worse,
once the refugees arrive in Europe, no country will accept them although
by the terms of the Refugee Convention once arrived in Europe they can
apply for asylum. (Their situation is viewed from a frankly racist
perspective - as though they represent an army of foreigners aiming to
pollute a pure white Europe.) There is an increasing drive to make life
impossible for them wherever they are, closing down what refugee camps
there are (particularly in France).

The refugees are housed in
shocking, subhuman conditions such as the ‘Jungle’ camp at Calais,
where they are constantly harassed by police and threatened with
eviction by the State. Indeed, this camp (home to 7000 people and 500
(unaccompanied children) is now threatened
with another demolition; which will rob these homeless people of the
little they have. The camps already have almost no facilities and are
run by hardworking overstretched volunteers relying on donations, not
official agencies.

The people who have reached the camps,
after difficult and dangerous journeys, have clearly not done it from
choice. Our failure to treat them with decency and humanity shames us. We are demonstrating to demand a new start, based on respect and human principles.

TREAT REFUGEES AS HUMAN BEINGS WITH FULL RIGHTS, ON EVERY STEP OF THEIR ROAD!

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